"Undersea tribe? The merfolk?"
"That's right. Now stay out of the way." The Atlantean turned his back on me and hurried off, snatching a trident from the rack and joining the flow of soldiers swimming toward the outer dome of the city.
"Wait! I want to help!" I protested, then I kicked off to join the human stream upward. Good thing we were underwater, so I could technically ignore the laws of gravity. As I swam toward the top of the qi dome, I suddenly realized that a notification window was popping up in front of me.
-Linked Quest: After successfully securing and protecting the Ancient Aquatic Artifact, the user has been brought to Atlantis. New objective: Assist the Atlanteans in protecting their kingdom from the undersea tribe. Completion of the mission will grant the appropriate rewards. –
That sounded good and all, but for something calling itself the "Super Summoning System," none of the rewards were relevant to summoning. Except for the Salamander egg, which had yet to hatch even after two months. I had almost forgotten about that, but I supposed I would need to find a suitable environment to incubate it before it finally hatched.
I was getting carried away. Before thinking about the rewards and worrying about how they would help with summoning, I should focus on actually completing the mission. As I kicked and surged upward, I frowned. How did the system expect me to help a kingdom fight off an entire army? There was no way a single individual like myself could make a difference to the war effort.
Super summoning system? More like stupid summoning system. Sure, the rewards so far had been worth it – restoring my cultivation, obtaining a Salamander egg, jumping a couple of levels. But those were rewards of me completing the missions and actually getting to the destination or securing an item, rather than gifts magically bestowed upon me by a higher power. Meaning that even without the system, as long as I went to the Di Yu Mountain range's hot springs or if I prevented the merfolk from getting their webbed paws on the Ancient Aquatic Artifact, I would have received the same "rewards" anyway.
To be fair, if the system hadn't tasked me with those missions, I never would have done them in the first place. And I supposed it was because this was reality. Of course it would be impossible for a god-like system to dish out rewards out of nowhere. You couldn't make something out of nothing. It was pretty much like real work – the company couldn't earn any profit without depending on the labors of its employees. It was thanks to the products that the employees produced or the services provided that companies could make some cash, and they would then divert these monetary earnings toward paying the employees' salaries. Otherwise, how would the company pay their workers? They didn't just generate money out of thin air.
By that logic, the system made sense. No convenient Deus ex Machina like a lottery draw to get me out of tight spots.
That was exactly why I was worried. Unlike a certain Monster Paradise, I couldn't expect the system to conveniently give me a card that would allow me to nuke the entire merfolk army in one shot. I wasn't Lin Huang, after all.
However, I was not the type to leave the people who treated me with great hospitality to die at the hands of their enemy. Especially since it was a mutual enemy.
"Song Jun Wen! What are you doing?"
I drifted to a stop and spun around in midwater when I heard someone call out my name. To my lack of surprise, Princess Myria was swimming toward me, escorted by her guards. She also came to a stop, her expression worried.
"Go back to the villa. Atlantis is under attack at the moment, so it's dangerous to be outside."
"I want to help. I will fight alongside you guys." I drew my sword and did a salute. "As gratitude for the hospitality you showed me, I will lend you whatever strength I have."
"There's no need to!"
"I know I won't be able to make much of a difference, but I also have a grudge against those guys. Besides, if the merfolk break through your defenses, they'll invade your kingdom. At that time, I wouldn't be safe even if I stayed inside the villa. I can't stay still and do nothing while you guys are risking your lives fighting against such an enemy anyway."
Plus it was a linked quest. That said, even if it wasn't a mission assigned by the system, I still would have offered my aid because it was the right thing to do. The rewards were just a nice bonus.
"You…" Myria trailed off before she shook her head. "Okay then, but stay close to me. Don't wander off on your own."
"Roger that."
We resumed swimming toward the upper curve of the dome, most of the Atlanteans already having formed ranks and bracing for combat. As Myria headed for the frontlines, she briefed me on what was happening.
"The undersea tribe is invading us again," she explained grimly. "Ever since the rift opened, the merfolks have always been testing our defenses and launching assaults once every few years. Recently, they are attacking us once every few months, their raids increasing in intensity. If you recall back when you saved us from the Large Liopleurodon, my scouting party had been sent out for reconnaissance because a shoal of whales had detected a massive presence of merfolk through sonar. We were about to confirm the signals when we were attacked by the Large Liopleurodon."
I nodded, realization dawning on me. Was that linked to the merfolk assault on my mom's offshore marine lab facility? Perhaps the detachment of merfolk that the whales detected was the very same one my dad and his squad fought off in the offshore lab a week ago.
It was all connected, wasn't it? Perhaps the undersea tribe even wanted the Ancient Aquatic Artifact to boost their strength before they launched another invasion of Atlantis, but my actions – and those of my dad, his squad and my mom's research team – had foiled their attempts. I wondered inwardly if they knew that the arcane relic was with me right now.
Best not to let anyone know, even Myria. I didn't know how the Atlanteans would react to that knowledge. Might they try to seize the artifact from me?
Still, there was another thing that interested me.
"The rift, you said?"
"Ah, to you surface dwellers, it probably is known as the rupture in interdimensional space, where the spirit beasts and demonic monsters began manifesting in our world. They didn't just appear in the surface – they also emerged in the depths of the sea. The merfolk, particularly, have been our oldest enemies since the rift opened two centuries ago."
"Yeah. The merfolk seem to be very different from most of the spirit beasts we know. The surface, I mean."
"Rather than spirit beasts, they are closer to demonic monsters. In fact, most Atlantean scholars would argue that they are demons. They possess an insidious intelligence, their own culture and even form their own tribe and civilization. The only difference is that their qi doesn't seem…demonic yet."
What did demonic qi even mean? I guess it came to a point where you could sense a malevolent power in their qi, something unnatural and malicious. It was mostly associated with excessive yin qi, though having lots of yin qi didn't necessarily equate to being demonic. It was almost as if the energy had turned into a living thing itself, transforming into a ravenous entity with an insatiable appetite for death and destruction.
The merfolk were halfway there, but not quite there yet. Probably within a few more generations, they might evolve into demons. I wasn't sure.
"Whatever they are, they are the enemy. If it's possible to exterminate them, we will…but we have yet to find the home of their tribe." Myria sighed. "The ocean is a vast place. Their homeland could be anywhere."
Then she frowned and clenched her fist.
"But first, we must deal with this threat to our kingdom."
"Agreed."
Drawing my bow, I got ready to take aim from afar. The armada of the undersea tribe had yet to come within range yet. They were close, but there was still quite some distance before they hit the dome-shaped barrier that protected Atlantis, and I wasn't sure if my arrows could pass through from the inside. It might be a waste of qi if the barrier was impervious to attacks from both within and without.
"What are you doing here, surface scum?"
Orin burst into place beside Myria, glaring hostilely at me. I jerked my head in the direction of the approaching merfolk army.
"I'm here to help."
"You?" Orin snorted. "You're surface trash who can't even swing a sword properly underwater. Have you forgotten how badly you lost to me last week? You probably can't defeat even a single merfolk with your feeble skills."
"I don't have to defeat the merfolk," I replied. "I just need to distract them for long enough so that you can defeat them."
"You…!" Orin spluttered, but was unable to refute. He turned to Myria for help, but the Atlantean princess simply shrugged.
"He has a point."
"Hmph. Don't get in the way." He turned his back on me, focusing his attention on the incoming armada. In addition to the legions of merfolk, each company led by its own merfolk chief, I could see other spirit beasts following them. Giant sharks such as Megalodons, pliosaurs such as the Large Liopleurodon, and crocodilian mosasaurs. There were lesser fishes resembling piranha, giant squids and other tentacled monstrosities swimming in the armada.
I wondered if I could summon any of those. Right now, the only summonable spirit beast I had was Xiao Huo, and she would drown in these depths. If the system was a bit more competent, I would have gone to collect marine spirit beasts, but I still didn't know what triggered the contract function. I couldn't just come up with a spirit contract myself, the system was the one that issued it.
But it was pretty stingy with the contracts. Ugh.
Well, no point complaining right now. Maybe I would get a marine spirit beast summon this time if I completed the linked quest. I recalled how I contracted Xiao Huo only after I left the hot springs and accomplished that first mission. I guess the system wanted me to work for my rewards.
Fine, then.
"Can my arrows pass through the barrier?" I asked Myria, who looked surprised. She nodded.
"Yeah. It shouldn't be a problem."
"Thanks." Taking a deep breath, I conjured an azure arrow and fitted it to my bow. Pulling the bowstring as far back as I could, I briefly closed my eyes to synchronize with the undersea currents. Once I harmonized my qi with the flow of the sea, I infused my arrow with esoteric energies and unleashed it.
Like an azure torpedo, my arrow streaked forward and out of the barrier to detonate against an astonished merfolk in the vanguard, the explosion taking out several of its comrades in a maelstrom of bubbles and shockwaves.
Lowering my bow, I smiled grimly, even as both Atlanteans and merfolk looked around for the source of the destruction. Regardless of the result, I had fired the opening shot.
And now the war was going to finally commence.